Mayor Vince Lago kicks FIFA World Cup watch parties down the road

A tradition at Fritz & Franz Bierhaus could be over

Apparently, Coral Gables is ready for the FIFA World Cup. Just not the people who actually gather to watch it together.

On Tuesday, Mayor Vince Lago, Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson and Commissioner Richard Lara once again kicked the can (the ball?) down the road on the now-infamous Fritz and Franz Bierhaus World Cup watch party proposal, delaying a vote until June 2 — roughly one week before the start of the tournament.

Cutting it a little close for a global sporting event that has only been coming for, oh, four years.

The stated reasons remain the same: safety concerns, staffing issues, traffic worries, noise complaints, Fourth of July complications, planetary alignment, Mercury in retrograde — whatever excuse is needed this week to avoid saying what this increasingly looks like to residents: another stop on Lago’s revenge tour through Coral Gables.

Because nobody seriously believes City Hall just discovered the World Cup was coming.

This is not some surprise backyard quinceañera that suddenly ballooned out of control. FIFA announced Miami as a host city in 2022. Where were Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava and former Miami Mayor Francis Suarez when the news was announced? At Fritz & Franz, of course.

Then, Coral Gables proudly became home to FIFA’s North America headquarters in 2024. And the city unanimously approved a giant decorative FIFA soccer ball installation Tuesday morning with all the enthusiasm of a tourism commercial.

They want the branding. They want the prestige. They want the selfies with the giant Trionda ball. They want to market themselves as the sophisticated international center of World Cup activity.

But the actual fans gathering outdoors to watch games at the same place they’ve gathered for six World Cups already? Suddenly that’s treated like a potential homeland security incident.

¡Por favor!

Police Chief Ed Hudak warned that officers will be “taxed to the max” during the tournament, which is fair enough. The World Cup will stretch law enforcement across the county.

But critics point out that Fritz & Franz is not proposing some brand-new unknown mega-event. These gatherings have existed for 24 years. The city knows exactly what they look like. Staff has worked them before. Police has worked them before. The restaurant has worked them before.

What changed isn’t the World Cup. What changed is the political climate inside Coral Gables City Hall.

And residents are starting to notice a pattern: If you are perceived as not aligned with the Lago political orbit — Fritz & Franz is where anti-Lago commission candidate Tom Wells had his watch party — suddenly every permit becomes a crisis, every request becomes “complicated,” overtime police costs go up and every issue gets buried under layers of procedural paralysis until people either give up or run out of time.

Which may be exactly the point here.

Because every delay hurts Fritz & Franz owner Harald Neuweg’s ability to prepare, hire staff, coordinate security, arrange vendors and organize logistics for an event that draws international crowds. Delaying the vote until June 2 keeps the restaurant twisting in uncertainty while the city keeps publicly insisting it’s merely being “careful.”

Convenient.

Especially after attorney Amanda Quirke Hand practically begged commissioners Tuesday to approve the proposal conditionally so preparations could move forward while details were finalized. She even offered flexibility on scheduling and police coordination.

Still no deal.

And perhaps the biggest tell of all came when commissioners suddenly clutched their pearls over “last minute” additions to the proposal involving U.S. and Germany matches — as though anyone familiar with Fritz & Franz could not have predicted those games would be central to the entire event.

At this point, the issue no longer feels administrative. It feels personal.

The venue, in the downtown Gables for 24 years, used to host the Coral Gables Bluesfest for 20 years and the Coral Gables. Neuweg says the city is trying to run him out of town.

“Now [they’re] trying to kill the best World Cup, Euro and Copa America Watch Party in South Florida,” he posted on Facebook Tuesday night after the meeting. “They are taking all my energy, my money and that little fun I have in this f……g business away from me! Maybe it’s time to fold!”

The comments were pretty much all the same: The city is nuts and “please move Fritz & Frantz” somewhere else.

This is the same thing that happened to Bar77, a sports bar on Giralda that closed after Lago refused to allow them to have TV screens for their outdoor patrons. The reason was only because the owner had sought help through Commissioner Castro instead of Mayor L’Ego. The mayor said it himself.

Neuweg was explicit in his post: “Mayor Vince Largo, Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson and this guy Lara! I am not your Slave! I am not your puppet! I am not going on my knees! I am not kissing your Ring!

“You want to put YOUR Fancy, Classy, FIFA VIP Public viewing Party somewhere else in this city, be my guest! You did not bring FIFA into Coral Gables! It was FRITZ & FRANZ BIERHAUS!”

The irony, of course, is that whether the commission approves the permit or not, people are still going to show up at Fritz & Franz to watch the games. As Hand bluntly noted, the crowds are coming regardless.

So the city now risks creating the exact scenario it claims to fear: massive gatherings without a fully approved operational plan already in place.

Brilliant governance.

But hey, at least there will be a giant decorative soccer ball downtown.

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Mayor Vince Lago kicks FIFA World Cup watch parties down the road added by Ladra on May 21, 2026
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